Being Amber Rhea

Blogging Against Disablism, in a roundabout way

Inside my head, today is a weird day. The jumbled thoughts and emotions about Sex 2.0, about what I can/can’t, should/shouldn’t say are still swirling around. I’m trying to push that stuff away and stay positive. -But even that isn’t an accurate description, because I am positive. I don’t like the false binary here of positive/negative. I have a positive attitude about Sex 2.0 and I am very excited about it, and at the same time there are some things I’m apprehensive about. That’s not so out of this world, is it?

Last night, I started another “personal internet history” post. I’m happy with my first one, which I wrote after hearing about GeoCities’ impending shutdown; but I want to do another one that’s more of a straight chronology, similar to Rusty’s. One thing my first post did was take me back to exploring some things that I hadn’t revisited in a long time. Actually, I’ve been awash in reminders of the past lately, previous versions of myself confronting me unexpectedly. It’s been jarring at times but, I think, also good; it’s important to take stock once in a while of where we’ve been, and to acknowledge that those “previous versions” are not things that we cast off like a skin but rather we build on them, so who I was is still who I am, even if sometimes that person seems very distant.

This has been happening as I’ve been unpacking. The computers are one piece of it, and with any luck I will start making those videos next week. But there are many more little pieces here and there that I’ve come across; it’s funny how something as simple as a rainbow-colored hair clip can bring tons of memories flooding back. I have a bunch of stuff sitting out that I keep meaning to photograph, or something; and talk about what it means to me. Maybe more videos?

So delving into personal online history is just a natural offshoot of that.

But that post will come later.

I knew today was Blogging Against Disablism Day but I wasn’t planning to write anything about it. Then I read Cara’s post about depression and was motivated.

Technically I am a person with mental illness. -And it bugs me that I just wrote “technically.” I guess I have some of the same concerns about appropriation as amandaw does. Even acknowledging that, and defying the stigma (which I’ve been doing for over ten years now), still it’s not an identity I feel like claiming. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with that, but for some reason I just don’t feel motivated to name it as part of my identity, rather just a trait of who I am. I know that seems like a meaningless semantic distinction but I don’t want to get off on a tangent, so I’ll move on.

I said I’ve been defying the stigma for ten years, and it’s true, in many ways I have. I talk openly and unashamedly about my history with depression and the fact that I take medication. I talk about it as if it’s no big deal, it’s just a natural part of daily life; which it is. At the same time, I’m also always aware in the back of my mind that this can be a small act of revolution, depending on who hears it; here I am, normalizing mental health issues and making the treatment of mental illness about as interesting as the treatment of, say, asthma or high cholesterol. For people who are still caught up in the stigma – either from feeling ashamed that they have mental illness or from harboring negative bullshit stereotypes about people with mental illness – this can have an impact.

In the latter case, it’s the same principle as the “I am a sex worker” PSA; it’s the same thing Jenny has talked about in describing her interactions with Republicans, how if she puts things in the context of “what if it was me?“, they start to get it. Humanizing is important. If you know me, and think I’m an okay person, and then you happen to find out I have a history of depression, it might make you challenge your own assumptions. “Huh, here’s a person with mental illness who’s a functioning adult just like me… so I guess they’re not all crazy and weird!” Or, “Hey, I think so-and-so is pretty cool. Oh, she’s also a sex worker? Huh, maybe they’re not all damaged and drug-addicted!” And so on.

Jenny does it by giving concrete examples; I remember one was something like, “What if I had a child, and I said if anything ever happened to me I’d want my sister to take care of my child; then I die in an accident and my sister wants to adopt my child, but she can’t, because she’s a lesbian” – suddenly, to the Republican she’s talking to, it’s about people, not faceless “issues.”

So that’s how I’ve always approached mental illness. For the most part.

Cara’s point here really resonated w/ me:

I’ve never mentioned this here before, though you may have seen me mentioning it in passing on other blogs or on Twitter, despite the fact that it would have been exceedingly relevant to do so on more than one occasion. The answer is simple: I’ve seen the reactions to it. I’ve seen that daring to confess any sort of mental illness and/or instability can be used against you, especially in the blogging world where credibility is regularly attacked, and where women are often called irrational just for having an opinion. And that people with anything short of “normal” mental health are often called irrational just by existing.

As I said when I was interviewed on the Cult of Gracie radio show a while back – sometimes I am hesitant to talk about some of the not so great parts of my life, because I’m afraid of how others with an agenda might try to use them against me. Someone hearing about my history of verbal and emotional abuse, growing up w/ an alcoholic father, being suicidal and being hospitalized in a psych ward, might use that information for their own means to try to prove whatever fucked-up theory they have about sexually expressive women, for example. They might pair that information with posts I’ve done about wanting to be a sex worker, and go, “A-ha! See??” But I didn’t sign on to be anyone’s poster child, and I go back and forth on it, because should I really let the threat of what someone might do control when and if I speak about my own life? The answer is not always clear-cut, because it depends on what the impact would be of what they might do.

The problem, as I said on the radio show, is how to balance that, and not go too far in the other direction. Sometimes as sex-positive feminists (as with many other identities), we try to over-compensate as a defense mechanism. It’s totally understandable – it’s an act of self-preservation. When people are waiting, watching, always at the ready to use our lives to further their own agendas, we feel the need to constantly focus on how happy, healthy, and well-adjusted we are. And it’s not bad to talk about those things; but if that’s all we talk about, then once again it’s easy to see us as not really human: perfect, flawless, completely well-adjusted, no hang-ups.

But that’s not reality. As humans, we are all a jumbled mess of contradictions, good and bad stories. We don’t live in isolation, and the words and actions of others affect us, just as our words and actions affect others. And having had painful things happen to you doesn’t automatically erase your agency, your ability to make informed decisions, your status as a “well-adjusted adult.”

As I said above, for the most part I haven’t ever claimed mental illness as an identity (although I did claim it during an identity exercise we did at the Desiree Alliance conference). And I hear every day the little pieces of the stigma that are woven into our society so intricately that it would be easy to not even notice. How many times have I heard, for example, when talking about someone who’s done something batshit and you can’t understand what the hell they’ve done, someone says, “She’s crazy. No, really, she has, like, a mental illness.” Because that shows that they’re REALLY crazy! They have a mental illness? Well, suddenly there’s just something so beyond the pale wrong with them that you can’t even try to figure it out, you can’t even reason with them, they’re not like us regular people who sometimes do crazy things.

And there are some rare occasions where this sort of distinction is important; but the way it’s often used? Nope. Because most of the people who throw it around are not qualified to make a diagnosis and probably don’t know what truly constitutes, say, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

They don’t know that they could be sitting there conversing with a person who has a mental illness. Because that person doesn’t match their preconceived notion of off-their-rocker non-functioning.

For a more specific example: there’s a guy who used to work where I work who was a real asshole, and a creep, and a weirdo. Sometimes his name comes up and we all laugh about what a fucking tool he was, because what can you do but laugh? (He sucked.) Invariably someone will bring up how he mentioned to a coworker that he had been in a mental hospital. Everyone will go, “Ohhhh!” Because see, that proves it! He’s FUCKED UP! Seriously! Last time it happened, I don’t know if I mentioned it or just thought about it, but I always wonder, how many of them would guess that I’ve been “in a mental hospital” too? Does that mark me as fucked up? Or maybe, just maybe, if someone got treatment, then they are NOT fucked up? (Leaving aside for a moment the topic at Jane Brazen’s, about whether or not certain kinds of “treatment” actually does a damn thing half the time.) That’s the part that has always confounded me. People will be like, “You know, she takes medication.” Well, GOOD! If she has a condition that she needs medication for, it’s good that she’s taking her medication! It would be bad if she weren’t on medication!

Talk about a headfuck.

I’m pretty good at confronting the mental illness stigma when I see it and just not giving a fuck about what anyone might think, because it’s their problem and they need to deal. But I realize there are a few areas where I’ve let shit slide, and I need to be better at calling it out when it happens, not just laughing along and pretending like there’s nothing wrong. And I need to remind myself that it’s okay to talk about the bad as well as the good, and people are going to make of it what they will, but in the end the only person who knows the truth of my life is me.

BlogHer ‘09: I’m speaking!

I’ve been given the go-ahead to announce this, so, guess what?

I’m going to be on a panel at BlogHer ‘09 in Chicago! Here’s the description:

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Identity/Passions: LifeBlogging Outside the Lines: When you’re not a Geek, a Political Wonk or a MommyBlogger

Friday, July 24, 1:15-2:30 PM

Blogging started as a geek’s game, and by 2004 political bloggers were making waves and mainstream media news. Post-BlogHer 2005 the rise of the MommyBloggers, first as cultural, then as commercial, force began. So where does that leave the rest of us… blogging about who we are and what we do with as much dedication, passion and amazing writing as any of those other blogging archetypes? We know that many of you who don’t fit neatly into the above boxes share the same concerns:

• How can I dispel stereotypes about people like me?
• How can I build community without something like an ideology or a kid of a particular age to serve as the common thread?
• How can I get a piece of the monetization pie… I have income and spend money too, you know?

Join Shameeka Ayers, Trish Bendix, Jane Gassner, and Amber Rhea and come flex your blogging muscles.

—

I’m really looking forward to this panel! And I have to say, the title amuses me… remember when “lifeblogging” was called, well, blogging? Heh. Also, I am a geek, but I know what they mean… my blog isn’t trying to be TechCrunch (thank god).

If you’re able to make it to BlogHer, register soon to get early-bird pricing through this Saturday!

More Saturday night stuff (complete withOUT proofreading)

Woo! Time for another packed-full-of-too-much-stuff, non-SEO-friendly, old-school-blogging post!

Speaking of SEO, Rusty and I were talking yesterday about how everyone wants high search engine rankings, and they’ll invest in all the whiz-bang SEO stuff but they won’t do the one thing that really matters: making sure anyone else knows their site exists so they’ll get some incoming links. Is that ironic? Or just unfortunate?

And that reminds of me of the scene in Reality Bites where Winona Ryder’s character (a journalism major who was valedictorian of her class) is asked, at a job interview, to define irony, and she stumbles over her words and can’t come up with a definition. Then she goes home and tells Ethan Hawke’s character what happened and complains that no one can define irony anyway, and he immediately defines it as when the actual meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning. When I first saw the movie, I remember thinking that that definition sounded awfully fancy, but when you think about it, it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. Now, searching webster.com, I see they include the same definition:

Main Entry: iro·ny
Pronunciation: \ˈī-rə-nē also ˈī(-ə)r-nē\

Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural iro·nies
Etymology: Latin ironia, from Greek eirōnia, from eirōn dissembler
Date: 1502

1: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other’s false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning —called also Socratic irony
2 a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c: an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2): an event or result marked by such incongruity b: incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony tragic irony

To me it seems like 3a is the definition that makes the most sense.

~*~

But enough of that. The big news is, re: the house… we are officially under contract!! We have binding agreement as of Thursday. This morning, we had our home inspection, termite inspection, mold test (will get results by Tuesday), and appraisal. The appraiser was so stereotypical. He struck me as someone out of a 1960s movie. But he was apparently impressed enough with the house to actually speak to us and say as much. Ha! As for the home inspection, it went well. The inspector found a few issues (naturally), but most of them are small things that the workers should have done in the first place during the renovation.

Now that I’m not quite as nervous about jinxing the sale, I’ll post a few more photos:

There’s also an old wooden swingset in the backyard that’s super cool.

I’m so excited! Thank you to everyone who has @’ed or DM’ed on Twitter about the house. I really need to write emails to people. I don’t want to become one of those people who constantly whines on being soooo behind on email, blogs, etc. But I think I’ve reached a tipping point where it’s all getting to be too much to manage. More on that later, though. The point: Thanks for all the well-wishes about the house! I’m going to be a home-owner, holy crap!

~*~

I don’t know how to write about this without upsetting someone, because regardless of my intent I know emotions are (100% understandably) a bit raw right now. Yet I still feel the need to speak, and I admit I’m doing it after Karsh did the hard work of speaking first. Ever since I heard about the vigil at The Standard and the formation of the Facebook group against rising crime in Atlanta, something about it didn’t sit well with me. Karsh articulated it well:

Yes, citizens in Atlanta need to feel safe. But I get the overwhelming perception from people I’ve talked to and read about that because this happened in East Atlanta, things must really be out of hand. I’d disagree with that. What if this happened in Bankhead or East Point or Buckhead? Would the public outrage be this great or this social-media oriented? Why start organizing now? Because it happened at a familiar haunt? I can almost smell a Twitter hashtag forming. (I’m partially kidding about that.)

I don’t disbelieve Maigh’s sentiment, and yet the fact is, we haven’t seen this type/level of outrage over other murders. To me it kind of smells like when I call a guy on sexist behavior and he insists, “I’d treat a man the same way!” Well, we don’t know that for a fact, now do we? And it’s moot anyway, because you haven’t treated a man this way. (Yet another clumsy analogy [I'm all about those lately] but I can’t think of a better one right now.)

Note this is not about accusing individuals of being “racists,” as in, a noun. People always latch onto that kind of thing and it derails discussions, because once again racism is cast as something that individuals perpetrate against other individuals, and you are either “a racist” or you aren’t; rather than racism being acknowledged as the systemic, ingrained, oft-unnoticed (by white people) issue it really is. Oh and if someone didn’t mean something in a racist way then it’s not racist. Except, that’s the entire point.

There are systemic issues here that have to be addressed, and if they’re not addressed, nothing will change. Yes, the cutting of the budget and reduction in police force is part of the problem. But far too many people are either ignorant of, or willfully ignoring, the deeper issue.

I’m sure someone will come over here and comment that I’m being disrespectful of John Henderson’s memory and that it’s not the appropriate time and that I’m just being an asshole. If they do, I understand. As I said, emotions are raw right now, and maybe it’s not the right time – but then, I wonder when the right time will be. I know what it feels like to deal with the loss of someone close to you, and the desire for “rational discourse” on a blog FFS is pretty much priority zero. So I understand and I’m sure I would feel the same way if it were my friend who had been murdered. But I just wanted to say my piece.

~*~

I admit I am a bit annoyed with this discussion of sex-positivity at Ren’s. Obviously I respect Ren’s right to like or dislike any terms, and to identify however she chooses! I get frustrated, though, when sex-positivity is constantly portrayed as meaning “I like sex.” Too many people have taken too many steps to explain why this is not the case for the myth to continue to be put forward. I know it’s a hard one to fight against because the marketing world has co-opted the term and applied it to things like fashion magazines, expensive shoes, and men’s body spray. As I said in the comments at Ren’s:

The sex-positive feminism wikipedia page and sex-positive wikipedia page actually have a much more detailed history of the term than the about.com article. I’m always a bit wary about linking to those pages though, because sometimes they get edited by anti-sex-positive people with an ulterior motive.

Anyway, personally, I’m not interested in debating the meaning of the term. It’s been spelled out pretty clearly in many places. For me, it’s part and parcel of feminism because it centers women’s sexual health and the way women’s sexuality has been pathologized under patriarchy. I provided links in order to help clarify some of the history behind the term; most people are not familiar w/ the history and unfortunately the way we most often hear it now is in the co-opted marketing sense, where it’s been twisted around so that it stands in for “anything vaguely related to sex, at all.” Often it’s applied to things that are completely the *opposite* of true sex-positivity.

Again, for me, I find that the term fits, and I will continue to self-identify as a sex-positive feminist. Everyone else is free to do what they want, of course!

See also my page of sex-positive feminism reference material, especially Queer Dewd’s post from two years ago on the matter. I (or anyone else) will never be able to say it better than she did.

~*~

This has been saved in my Bloglines for weeks, and I’m not sure what I can say about it, because you just need to check it out: $pread’s excellent cultural analysis of anti-trafficking posters. Seriously, read it. And tell me those images aren’t fucked up.

Social Media Club reflections

Thursday night, I led a discussion at the January Social Media Club Atlanta meeting. The topic was Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo – and yes, there was a real Bingo game. I was pretty proud of the cards, if I do say so myself; although I realized yesterday I left out a good one: “folksonomy.” Rusty did the design in Photoshop and I just love it. Note the iPhone-style letters at the top, and the Beta violator as the free spot. Here is J’s winning card:

The markers, btw, are magic beans which, if planted, will sprout a series of tubes leading to Robert Scoble’s house. Hardy har har.

The first two people to arrive at the meeting were new to Social Media Club, and one of them asked me if the Buzzword Bingo thing was a joke or for real. I said, “Well, it’s all in good fun, but yes, I really did make Bingo cards.” The point of the Bingo cards was to hopefully give everyone a self-referential laugh while at the same time getting people to stop and think about some of the language we use when we talk about social media. As I explained at the beginning of the meeting, one of the biggest problems I see with these conversations (G-47!) is that people use these words but we don’t have a common understanding of what the definitions are. It’s the same problem my BlogOrlando session addressed. I’ve seen similar problems happen in feminist circles when there isn’t a commonly-accepted lexicon (e.g., words like “objectification” and “degradation” can mean any number of things to different people). If we don’t share a common definition and just assume the other person knows what we mean, we end up talking past each other.

After explaining the Bingo game, I started by reading an excerpt from Sarah Dopp’s totally completely absolutely awesome post, “Why I Write About My Life On the Internet.” Here’s the part I read:

I write about my life on the Internet because it creates a space for these connections. What else could make a complete stranger feel safe emailing me to say, “I’m queer, and I can’t tell anyone, but I wanted to tell you“?

I’ve been writing about my life on the Internet for about nine years now. I’ve learned by trial-and-error what works and what doesn’t, and I manage my presence in a way that nourishes me. Sometimes I make mistakes and have to face negative consequences, but they’ve never come anywhere close to outweighing the benefits.

…

I write about my life on the Internet because it changes the way I connect with my own experiences. In order to write down a story, I have to sort through all of the details and focus on the ones that made it significant for me. I believe our stories shape us – the way we remember something affects who we are and how we relate to the world. Writing things down empowers me to consciously decide how I want to remember something, and to me, that’s an act of personal revolution. Then, when details get echoed back to me in someone else’s words – either through a comment or another blog post – my way of seeing things gets a little bit stronger, and my voice gets a little bit more steady.

Later, in response to something a participant said, I read this part as well:

I’ve worked through some very hard stuff through blogging, and I’ve made some powerful connections in the process. People have thanked me for telling stories that opened doors in their own lives that they didn’t know they were missing out on. Other bloggers have done the same for me.

I believe in telling stories, I believe we’re more powerful when we’re connected, and I believe in telling fear to f*ck off.

I couldn’t read the hyperlinks, of course, which just goes to show part of what is great about social media – the social aspect!

What motivated me to read the second part was a guy who seemed to be having trouble with the idea that forming relationships and deep connections is a valuable thing. I tried my best to hear him out and see where he was coming from, because I really cannot conceive of not seeing that as a valuable thing. I was trying to suss out whether he was confining it to just social media, and I pointed out that this really isn’t something that’s limited to social media – it’s what humans have been doing for millenia. It’s about socializing and connecting. I truly cannot understand how someone would not see that as valuable, but I acknowledged that even though I don’t understand it, I can grant that it’s possible. (It still boggles my mind, though.)

Something I really want to get at in these conversations is that the questions being raised are not new, or unique to social media. They’re the same issues we’ve always grappled with: What, and how much, do we share with whom? How do we make that decision? What if someone finds out something about us that we don’t want to be public information? The difference now is simply that social media is giving more people the tools to speak their truths candidly, to whatever degree they want. At the meeting I mentioned the transgressive potential of social media, how it can enable members of traditionally marginalized groups to speak without a filter. I said that’s something we need to always remember, instead of just falling into the trap of replicating existing power structures online. This was met with a lot of blank stares and I was afraid people were either bored or lost, so I stopped. But I really feel passionately about this.

As I said on Joseph’s blog, it frustrated me how much of the conversation focused on business, as these conversations often do. The topic of my BlogOrlando session was directly related to the concept of “professionalism,” but the idea behind the SMC-ATL meeting was more general. Certainly, business plays a huge role; but there are other reasons people self-censor as well. I think some of those deeper reasons need to be examined, because it seems like sometimes people use business as a go-to excuse (“my boss might see!”). I do get the sense, whenever I facilitate a discussion like this, that a lot of people really do feel held back and as if there’s something putting a gag on them. I see people really yearning to break out of all that and speak their truths. I see an internal battle happening because often these same people are defending compartmentalization, using words like “professional,” and bringing up red herrings such as not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings by writing something mean about them. But I can see the struggle in their eyes. I know that sounds really corny, but it’s true.

In a new post entitled “New Brand World: What’s Your Brand?”, AV Flox says:

Image matters. How other people perceive you is as important as what you’re actually doing.

I have to take issue with this. I think there are two very different issues being conflated here. For example, you might think you’re Jesus, but everyone else knows you’re a crazy person; in that sense, I completely agree with her statement. But it’s the other issue that bothers me: that we should measure our success or failure by what other people think. Don’t you remember hearing, back in grade school: “Don’t worry about what others think of you. Be yourself.” That’s sage advice, and again, this is nothing new to social media. When people start basing their identity on external perceptions, it’s a dangerous road to go down. Surely we can all agree that basing your self-worth on something other than external validation is a good thing.

It’s also part of being a grown-up. Children and teenagers seek external validation, and teenagers in particular are in the process of forming their own identities, and as such take a lot of cues from external feedback. Or, in layman’s terms: they’re awkward and self-conscious.

But as you get older, you start to get more self-confident, and you realize other people’s perceptions don’t matter and if you spent all day worrying about them you’d be exhausted. It’s why the 18-year-olds in the locker room hide behind their towels and surreptitiously change inside their clothes while the 50-year-old women walk around stark naked without a second thought.

I have a negative reaction to all this “personal brand” business on a very fundamental level, and I think AV Flox’s statement gets to the crux of it. Saying “how other people perceive you is as important as what you’re actually doing” leaves out the essential question of, which people? I did not spend 10+ years in therapy working through this shit to see high school rehashed on the web among a bunch of adults. And yes, everyone deals with self-consciousness from time to time, or feeling discouraged by what someone said about them; to pretend we live in a vacuum where we’re not at all affected by others’ opinions would be foolish. But that is a far cry from giving precedence to what other people think over what you know. Because, as my favorite therapist once said, “You are the expert on you.”

I also got a bit flustered when, as I was talking about this very thing, Dave mentioned something about how you have to aware of how your actions and words affect other people. Well, YES, of course! I was flustered because to me that’s such an obviously, completely different thing. Yes, self-awareness is a GOOD thing and is part of what it means to have basic social skills. For example, if you identify as gay, you probably won’t explain the detailed mechanics of gay sex to your conservative Christian grandmother. Know your audience. However, that’s a very different thing than being in the closet and being afraid of your sexual orientation being “found out” because someone might be made uncomfortable. (I admit it’s a clumsy analogy but hopefully it gets the point across.)

Finally, one thing I tried to make painfully clear at the meeting was that I would never judge someone negatively for the choices they make in what information to share or not share online. That is each person’s call to make for themselves. I know I probably got repetitive with this at the meeting, but I wanted to make sure there was absolutely no misunderstanding. As I said to Nikki a while back, the point is not to mandate that people must have a certain level of openness online, but rather for all of us to respect each other’s choices and boundaries without prejudging. That means that if I don’t prejudge you because you don’t write about sex, you also don’t prejudge me because I do.

At one point Dave brought up the different (mostly inadequate) methods of restricting online content to only certain people, and he mentioned that I’ve written some password-protected blog posts. After addressing the technical side of things, I talked about how I’ve been dismissed as a hypocrite because of my password-protected posts – and why that dismissal doesn’t parse for me. Yes, I am fairly open with what I write; but that doesn’t mean I don’t have boundaries. The failure of some people to grasp this, and instead their insistence on a black-and-white view, confounds me. I mentioned that a lot of my password-protected posts were about my dad’s death. It’s simply not something that I want to be available for public consumption. That’s my choice to make. Someone else might prefer their writing on their father’s death to be available for all. That’s their choice to make. Both are equally valid.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the meeting and helped make it an interesting discussion. People weren’t talking much at the beginning and I was worried the topic was a flop. But eventually people got warmed up and the discussion really got going. I wish I could’ve stayed all night to talk about it! These are not questions that have easy yes or no answers or problems that can be solved and done away with; we’ll continue to deal with this stuff as social media trends evolve, just like we’ve been dealing with it forever.

Wednesday

Lots of things on my mind… I suppose I’ll just start writing and keep on until I’m too tired to type. And no proofreading!

~*~

In the “HOLY SHIT I’M AN ADULT” department, Rusty and I put an offer in on a house yesterday. It’s the first one pictured in this post. I haven’t blogged or Twittered about it much because I don’t want to jinx anything, and because I’m freaking out a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I know this is the right decision and all that jazz; but it’s a BIG decision, and a major commitment. Signing a lease is one thing but getting a mortgage, that’s an entirely different level of “you better know what you’re getting into.” It looks like everything is going to work out w/ this house, but still, I appreciate any and all crossed fingers. The next few weeks will be a flurry of activity leading up to closing, and I intend to enjoy all of it! Then, after closing, there will be a flurry of activity leading up to moving in. Followed by a flurry of activity leading up to having the place looking decent enough for a housewarming party!

Priorities before closing: home inspection and termite inspection (duh); figuring out where the furnace is.

Priorities after closing: Security system; Orkin super-dousing because I don’t play around with roaches; personal pole studio; many bird feeders in the backyard.

A REQUEST: Please do not offer any unsolicited real estate “advice” in the comments!

~*~

I love Rachel Maddow. She and Suze Orman are two of my heroes. Initially I found Suze Orman annoying, but that was before I’d ever listened to anything she said – I just thought she was annoying because she seemed to shout so much. Then I realized the shouting is part of what makes her awesome. But, back to Rachel Maddow. How freakin’ cool is she?? However, I don’t like how in this New York Magazine article she says “I’m not very pretty.” Why the self-deprecation? No, she doesn’t conform to the general media-dictated ‘beauty standard’ for women, but so what? There’s no need to cast that as her not being pretty. It really bothers me. She is pretty, but it bugs me that there’s any discussion of it at all, honestly; when would you see a male pundit’s looks being such an issue?

~*~

I love love love this post at Shakesville, about Congress finally switching to gender neutral language. What is absolutely not surprising, of course, is the reaction to this news from a hell of a lot of people – whining that it’s “not important” and the feminists have their hair on fire again, blah blah. This is a perfect example of how privilege works. Inevitably, in every “conversation” like this, some dude will pipe up and say how there’s not some conspiracy against women and why don’t we feminists just shut up already, it’s just language, get over it. Well, first of all, I’m not fooled by anyone trying to lecture me on the way language works – I’ll bust out the learnin’ that earned me my linguistics degree any day of the week. But the main point is: no, OF COURSE there’s not a conspiracy – THAT’S THE POINT. No one is sitting in a smoke-filled room, rubbing their hands together maniacally as they devise ways to oppress women through grammatical rules. No one “means anything by it.” Everytime someone poses this as an “argument” it just makes me roll my eyes, because it’s like hello, you have just PROVEN THE POINT. The question of intent does not figure into this. The fact that it’s normalized, the default, we just accept it, nobody “means anything” by any of it – that is the problem! I can’t tell you how sick I am of people trying to argue intent against someone pointing out privilege in action. It makes me want to beat my head against a wall because they don’t seem to realize that LACK OF INTENT is the point!! If I hear one more person talk about how someone didn’t mean something maliciously, I’m just going to… well, I don’t know what. Beat my head against a brick wall?

Brief note about Old English: the commenter at the Shakesville thread who mentioned wyf and wer as the Old English words for woman and man, and man as the Old English word for human, is correct. The Old English word wyfman, which became woman, literally meant “female person.”

Also, I love the commenter who mentions how you’ll see exactly how big of a deal male-as-unmarked-case language is when you switch the genders and start using “she” as a general-purpose pronoun instead of “he.” It will blow some people’s minds, and some will get REALLY fucking hostile about it. The Regender tool is also a really interesting way of demonstrating how gender stereotypes are encoded in our language.

See also X: A Fabulous Child’s Story. Thanks to Catherine for showing me her original 1970s copy of the book; the illustrations are wonderful!

~*~

As I mentioned yesterday, Caroline has been doing a bang-up job with the UK prostitution law news. I have briefly glanced at the F-Word thread and even left a few comments at the Feministe thread, but for the most part unfortunately I haven’t had time to participate or do much blogging of my own on the issue. But from what I saw at the F-Word thread, it’s all the same bullshit “arguments” that give me a pounding headache. Kudos to Caroline, Ren, Natalia, and others for fighting the good fight; I’ll be back at it once I have some time, I promise. Even though these conversations with the antis feel SO repetitive, I believe it is extremely important to keep having them, because people’s lives are at stake, and if we don’t speak, then the people in power will continue to actively and passively commit violence against sex workers. Being uncomfortable or annoyed is not a justification for permanently disengaging from these issues. Absolutely, everyone must take breaks, because it is vitally important that we take care of ourselves. But that’s why it’s crucial to have many, many people involved in the sex workers’ rights movement, so that there’s always someone there to speak, and so that everyone can properly care for themselves.

Fundamentally, I just don’t get it, with these “arguments.” At the F-Word, for example – how much clearer could Caroline be? It’s not about whether you think sex work is right or wrong. It’s not about how it’s constructed in our society or why it exists or where it comes from. It’s not about wondering whether sex work would still be around after The Revolution. It’s not about discussions of “normalizing” prostitution, questions of whether sex workers can choose their work, debates about what exactly is being sold. IT IS ABOUT SAFETY AND HUMAN RIGHTS. This should not be a source of debate. Feminists should be united on this, completely. It should be a foregone conclusion. That the conversation always drifts back to ideology, what prostitution “means” and that kind of thing, really disgusts me and astounds me. And this constant conflating of sex work and trafficking? STOP, ALREADY!!! This is what Sex in the Public Square held a week-long forum to address, but I guess most of the antis didn’t bother to read that, now did they. The way trafficking is ALWAYS brought into these discussions, such an obvious red herring but one that always leads to derailment, just floors me.

Sigh… Ren, I’m going to need another Typical file.

~*~

To say this essay by Latoya of Racialicious is powerful would be an insulting understatement. It’s entitled “The Not Rape Epidemic” and is the original version of the essay which appears in the Yes Means Yes! anthology. She has a trigger warning on it, so be aware of that if you’ll be clicking through.

And you certainly should click through, because I think this essay is a must-read, especially for men. The essay resonated with me on a very deep level, to a degree that I feel I can’t articulate. Women experience this shit all the time and most of us don’t say anything – because we know from experience that if we do, it won’t help and will likely hurt. One time a male friend remarked that he couldn’t really see a mutual female friend the same way after learning she’d been raped; I was so bothered by his statement that I said nothing. What I was thinking was, if you truly knew how many of your female friends and acquaintances had experienced sexual assault, you wouldn’t be speaking to most of them if you have such a problem with “seeing them the same way.” Men don’t realize how prevalent this is. They might hear the 1 in 4 stat but often I don’t think it really registers on a “yes, this has happened to someone I know” level.

I want to write more about Latoya’s essay but I can’t find the words. What I want to say about it is beyond words.

~*~

Tomorrow night I’m leading the Social Media Club Atlanta meeting. The topic is “Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo.” You can RSVP on Facebook or Upcoming – or just show up! (Though RSVPing is always nice.) Here are some links I’ll be using for reference material, if you want to read up ahead of time. There won’t be a quiz but there will be a Bingo game, with an appropriately self-referential prize.

• Sarah Dopp: Why I Write About My Life On the Internet
• Nelson “Nelz” Carpentier: The Real Nelz
• Penelope Trunk: Good blogging is simple: Write good posts (and be thankful)
• AV Flox: Hiring the Information Generation
• Caroline McCarthy: What I don’t get about all this hullaballoo over personal branding

And finally this gem from Laura’s LiveJournal, which is short enough that I can just post the whole thing. When I put the link in my browser it wanted me to log in, so I don’t know if the post was friends-locked or what, so I’m not linking; but I doubt she’ll mind me sharing this chunk of wisdom…

Just an observation from Twitter

Robert Scoble is a self-promotion machine. It gets tiresome.

I’m sorry, but I am about to un-follow ever media marketing PR link-spamming mongol because I am sick of their shit. The only topic more boring is…oh, I can’t think of any topic more boring.

That is all.

Heh.

I’m excited about the meeting, but also a little nervous! Please come out and help make it an interesting discussion. (It’s all in good fun, so I hope no one gets pissy about the words on the Bingo card.) Here’s the description again:

SMC ATL: Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo

When: Thursday, January 8, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Manuel’s Tavern – North Avenue Room

Thanks to Amber Rhea for leading the conversation and bingo game! Bring your bingo dauber and POV on these identity topics!

• Is your online identity different from your IRL identity?
• What does it mean to “manage your online identity”?
• Are there any off-limits topics on blogs? Who decides?
• Rethinking the personal/professional dichotomy and tearing down the walls of compartmentalization: yea or nay?

Note: this is what a dauber is.

~*~

And that’s a wrap. I’m getting sleepy, so it’s time for bed. Rusty and I are getting up a little earlier than usual tomorrow so we can go over to our potential new house and see what the traffic on Moreland is like at the usual time when we head to work. If we have to adjust our schedule to account for it, I don’t mind; I actually like getting to the office early. We just want to be aware!

This post is going to have a million tags.

Social Media Club ATL January meeting

One week from today, I’ll be here; will you? (note: link is a Facebook page)

SMC ATL: Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo

When: Thursday, January 8, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Manuel’s Tavern – North Avenue Room

Thanks to Amber Rhea for leading the conversation and bingo game! Bring your bingo dauber and POV on these identity topics!

• Is your online identity different from your IRL identity?
• What does it mean to “manage your online identity”?
• Are there any off-limits topics on blogs? Who decides?
• Rethinking the personal/professional dichotomy and tearing down the walls of compartmentalization: yea or nay?

If you would like to add to the topics or join Amber in a panel format – please contact Peter or Tessa about your interest.

January sponsors needed! Please contact us if you can offer event food and beverage support.

Like the description says, if you’re interested in doing a panel-ish format, get in touch w/ Tessa or Peter (or me!) in the next day or two.

Sex workers self-identifying

After posting about the National March for Sex Workers Rights, I wanted to address something that I think a lot of activists, if they’re not directly involved with the sex workers’ rights movement (and even many who are), do not think about. A comment from Zenobia on a post Anji wrote about Reclaim the Night (which I found via Debi) made me think I should post something:

Although I’d be more on the side of the one screaming about sex workers’ rights, but still, where are the sex workers themselves actually involved here? At the moment, they’re just the audience being informed that feminists have opinions on them. How’s that useful to them in any way?

In response, I left a brief comment:

Keep in mind, too, that sex workers may not always self-identify, due to concerns about being outed. They may face very real concerns about the possibility of facing stigmatization or even arrest.

Zenobia’s comment bothered me because of all the assumptions wrapped up in it. Why does she assume there were not any sex workers among the activists shouting for sex workers’ rights? Is it because in her mind, like the minds of so many people, “sex worker” means “street-based prostitute” or “down-on-her-luck stripper?” Or, what, do they have to be wearing a T-shirt that says “I’M A SEX WORKER” in order for her to believe it? Sex workers of all stripes are the ones leading the sex workers rights movement, and yep, many identify as feminists. Does Zenobia assume those identities are mutually exclusive?

People, even those who consider themselves feminist or progressive or whatever, have lots of ignorance, stereotypes, and unquestioned assumptions about sex workers. One is that they can “spot” a sex worker. Guess what? Not true. You see sex workers every day; you just don’t know it. As PlainsFeminist writes:

In fact, one of the things that continually surprises me (because I, too, fall prey to stereotypes about sex workers) when I meet sex workers is that they look just like everybody else.

When you really think about it, this assumption is pretty stupid. Do people really think sex workers walk around in 7″ heels and a thong all the time? That they all have bleach-blond hair and breast implants? That they’re all women (an assumption that both the previous stereotypes rest on)? Unfortunately in my experience, lots of people who are otherwise very intelligent do subscribe to these ridiculous ideas.

So back to Zenobia’s comment – if she can’t “spot” the sex workers, then they must not be there, right?

As I wrote above, something that even well-intentioned activists often don’t consider is that sex workers often have reservations about self-identifying. This is one reason why it’s so difficult to organize for sex workers’ rights on a local level. In some areas it is easier than others, but for example, this is one of the biggest hurdles we faced organizing the IDTEVASW event at Charis last year – and it’s why, I think, no one other than Caitlin and Tabby (the other two organizers) came up to do anything for the open mic. We restricted the open mic to current and former sex workers because we wanted to make sure the event was not co-opted by non-sex workers; but, it’s asking a lot of someone to get up in front of a room of strangers (even strangers who, ostensibly, are there because they support the cause) and say “I’m a sex worker.” Having reporters from media outlets in the room only adds to that pressure. Of course we wanted the event to be covered by the media, because sex workers’ rights activism gets little to no coverage in the media; but at the beginning of the event we specifically told people from the media NOT to take photos or use quotes from anyone without getting their explicit permission.

In fact, this is part of why it’s so difficult to achieve adequate representation for sex workers in the media. Dacia covered this in her session at WAM!2008, “Sex Workers and Media Representation.” Mainstream media organizations often want certain information about people’s identities when quoting them for a story (for some reasons that are valid and some that are spurious); but for sex workers, this is highly problematic. Some sex workers that have trusted mainstream media have then been outed and faced the repercussions – thereby instilling in the community even less trust in the media.

While it’s certainly not easy to go on record, whether at a small community activist event or in the New York Times, as being a member of many other marginalized/oppressed groups, most of those identities don’t have the potential for arrest, eviction, job loss, or loss of custody of your children. Most people don’t think about this dilemma that sex workers face, because they don’t have to – and that, of course, is the definition of privilege. It’s not on your radar, it never even occurs to you that it would be something to put on your radar because you have no idea it exists. As a tangent, this is helpful yet again in dispelling the myths and misunderstanding around the concept of “privilege.” You’re not a bad person because you didn’t know about something; but you tacitly benefit from not having to know about it.

Couldn’t agree more

Valuable advice for bloggers (or anyone!) from Penelope Trunk, via Rachel on Tumblr:

Stephane Grenier: Which book(s) would you recommend for new bloggers (these can range from marketing books, blogging books, etc)?

Penelope Trunk: The Sensual Woman. I read it when I was a kid and I was trying to figure out what sex was. I didn’t really understand—at that point—why people would even want to have sex. But what I did understand was that if you were your real self, and just did what felt right, you would meet the definition of “good in bed.” And then, very quickly, I realized that this book applied to everything in life—just be your true self and people will see that you enjoy yourself and they will see the true you and whoever you are, seeing that will be interesting. I think a lot of bloggers are scared to be their true selves on their blog, but so much of blogging is about the blogger’s personality. So people should read this book—to understand how fundamental it is to just be yourself.

Read the whole interview… it’s full of win.

Online identity redux all over again

I was trying to fit this into my previous post on the topic but couldn’t find a way to work it in. Anyway, I want to address something Nikki said a while ago.

I guess my point is that some people have a valid, personal reason for not feeling like it’s all that and a bag of chips to have every detail of their personal lives on the internet. I don’t mind if anyone else does, but maybe it’s not for me. I realize what probably sets my take on it apart from some of these people is that I’m not *judging* anyone for having 100-0% of their lives online, I just understand why I make the choice *I* make, without feeling like it’s incumbent upon me to force it on someone else.

Read her full comment here.

I want to respond to her comment because I sincerely hope that throughout all the times I’ve spoken about this issue, it’s been clear that my attitude is actually the same as what she says above. The crux of the matter is not how much or how little you choose to share about yourself online. We all have our own boundaries and set them as we see fit. What matters is that we respect each other’s right to set those boundaries differently.

I was getting very pissed off about this back at BlogSavannah, because when Gennie was leading her session she mentioned that she doesn’t use swear words in front of her son, and some woman in the group kept harping about it and saying she wasn’t “being honest,” because she uses those words on her blog. This woman really pissed me off, because who is she to make that call for Gennie? Get off her back already!

I would never attempt to “force” any degree of personal revelation on someone. That goes against the entire spirit of what I see as the power of blogging. These decisions are for each of us to make, on our own time, in our own spaces.

Believe it or not – and I say this only partially sarcastically – there are things about my life that I do not share online. I am a very private person in the sense that only a few people truly know me, good, bad, ugly, everything. It is very important to me to write openly online and speak my truth; but that does not negate my privacy and the fact that I have boundaries. Personally I don’t think this is such a radical notion, but apparently to a lot of people it is (I mentioned it here, and of course there’s always the whole sex thing with dudes).

Why do we assume that if you choose to share some things about yourself that are traditionally coded as “private” – i.e., ew ick keep it out of public conversation; that’s just not fit for polite company; that might make people uncomfortable; chin up, dearie – then you have nothing left that you keep to yourself or to a small group of friends/family, for whatever reason? And that just as the words you speak to a larger community are yours to share as you see fit, so are your reasons for not speaking about other things yours alone to determine?

Obviously, I think there is tremendous value in people – especially women – defying the traditional rules of what you can and can’t talk about. But only if they want to. If someone feels stifled, then I want them the find the tools and the strength to not feel stifled anymore. As Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” (I was recently reminded of this excellent quote via a post by AV Flox; eventually I want to write a direct response to that post.) Far too many of us feel stifled, so let’s split open the world one blog at a time – and no, I do not think that’s hyperbole!

Broken record 2.0

In some ways I wish I had gone to the Network Stars Atlanta Seminar Tuesday night. I am impressed that so many people (175!) showed up – once again, just goes to show that Atlanta isn’t some piddly little second-tier place just because we’re not New York or San Francisco. I’ve heard lots of positive reactions about the event. But reading J’s post should make it obvious why I’m glad I didn’t go.

Am I cynical? I don’t know, but it’s just that these are the perennial questions – how much do you reveal? what is “professional?” what are the risks? etc. – and I’ve been in conversations about them too many times to count over the last several years. I feel like a broken record with this stuff – how many times can I say the same thing? Is it worth it to keep saying it? I get irritated with others for not “getting it” and irritated with myself for being so repetitive.

It’s not the fact that the questions keep being raised that irritates me so much; it’s the way in which they are typically presented: very one-sided, with lots of presumptions and suppositions and pre-conceived notions that go unchallenged. As I said to Toby in an email, “I think the ways in which personal and business presence intersect online is a fascinating and relevant topic.” The dynamic during and feedback from my BlogOrlando session shows that presenting this topic as more than just the superficial clichés of “personal vs. professional” encourages some great dialogue and critical thinking. It’s the interpersonal aspect of social media that is so much more interesting to me than “how do you position yourself in the market” and “how do you install WordPress.” They call it social media for a reason, after all.

As for Geoff Livingston, one thing that really annoys me about getting into it with people like him is that we inevitably end up talking about two different things. He’s over there at J’s blog saying he’s a private business owner and he’s allowed to run his business however he wants. Well, duh! Nobody is saying he doesn’t have the right to run his business how he wants! I don’t know where anybody has ever said that. What a lot of people are saying, though, is that hey, maybe that’s not the best way to run your business, and it might be worth considering other options, because you might be shooting yourself in the foot.

Maybe I shouldn’t have left that snarky* comment toward him at J’s blog, but I just couldn’t help myself, and who cares anyway? It’s not like he’s going to consider me an “equal” in any sense of the word anyway – I have POLE DANCING PHOTOS and TALK ABOUT SEXUALITY and USE THE F-WORD, for heaven’s sake! (Shades of Dave Mastio.) Toby had graciously attempted to introduce us via email, after I inquired about who spearheaded the Tuesday night event and whether they might be interested in presenting my defunct BlogHer Atlanta panel topic. I doubt I’ll get a response or that he would be interested, so it’ s not like I’m “burning a bridge” or anything. I’m used to that kind of preemptive dismissal by now, after nearly seven years of blogging. It never ceases to dishearten me, though.

I absolutely agree with Ellie that my panel topic needs to be presented in a space that is not already coded as sex-positive. That’s how real shifts in perspective happen – getting outside the echo chamber (a term I don’t like, but I’m writing this quickly), engaging with people and presenting them with viewpoints they might not have previously considered. That’s what was so great about my BlogOrlando session.

So, I’m still looking for a space – or spaces, plural! – for that discussion. But if I don’t find it, I’ll just keep doing what I’ve always done: make my own space. One of the greatest, most transgressive powers of social media, after all, is that we can all speak our truths with our own voices and not be beholden to someone controlling, with an iron fist or a red pen, what we can and cannot say.

* Aside: did you know that “snark” is a contraction of “snide” and “remark?” I recently found that out. Makes total sense!